The complexity of the interior of the human body provides significant challenges for physicians and technicians who wish to evaluate the body for medical purposes. As the human body is complex in its construction, evaluation of the body by medical imaging is difficult, if not impossible, by conventional imaging systems as these systems lack the ability to automatically differentiate between different organs in the body. Physical features of an individual person's anatomy, such as heart vessels, are different than liver vasculature which in turn are different than, for example, a femoral artery. Current medical imaging systems, however, cannot automatically detect and represent a user specified organ within a body because some anatomical features of organs have physical similarities between tissues, thus confusing the interpretation of data received. Such conventional systems, rather, are prone to significant error in their scanning results as organs blend together in scans as the difference in structure cannot be fully ascertained. As a result, such conventional systems cannot be used for detailed scanning of a patient or in critical medical cases where specific details on anatomy are necessary. These conventional systems lack sufficient resolution for detailed analysis by physicians and technicians resulting in the physician taking repetitive scans to try to obtain a best possible differentiated result. Conventional systems are often specifically designed for individual organs in an attempt to limit the error causing aspects of these systems. Conventional systems, therefore, abound as the numerous organs of the body each have specialized systems for analysis. Such conventional systems are expensive to manufacture and require specialized training for each individual operating the system.
Conventional systems, as they are specialized, do not have the substantial capability to be programmed for new tasks of automatically scanning individual organs not originally intended to be evaluated in original design and manufacturing of the equipment. These inflexible systems cannot be updated with the latest information related to scanning technologies pertaining to other organs. As a result, these systems have a limited service life and capability.
As the conventional systems have many drawbacks, there is a need to provide a method and apparatus to automatically determine the presence of an organ whereby the similarity of anatomical features of an individual are accurately analyzed.
There is also a need for a method and apparatus to analyze the presence of organs in both three dimensions and in two dimensions in relation to time.
There is also a need for a method and apparatus to provide a single scanning system that will be sufficient to accurately scan multiple organs with sufficient clarity without the need for multiple systems for a patient.
There is a further need for a method and apparatus to provide a single scanning system that will allow for visual interpretation of results allowing doctors and/or technicians to easily evaluate scans.